› added 10 years ago

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TIL that human poop and farts get their foul smell from the chemical compounds Skatole and Indole (among others). At low concentrations, these compounds smell flowery, and are used in perfumes. USA and Israel have used Skatole in crowd control sprays—the stench does not wash off skin for 3 days.

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pYore TIL in 1897 when British railway pioneer Magnus Volk wanted to extend his railway line to Rottingdean, he created the "Daddy Long Legs", a unique electric tram atop four 23' tall legs that ran on tracks submerged in the ocean. At high tide it moved at "a very slow walking pace."
lob0V TIL that Shakespeare's epitaph contains a curse for grave robbers.
X0Xgj TIL that Comet Swift-Tuttle is the largest comet to make repeated close approaches to Earth. A collision would release 27 times the energy of the impact that caused the extinction of dinosaurs. It has been described as "the single most dangerous object known to humanity".
9DyG TIL Sir Adrian de Wiart served in the Boer War, WWI, WWII, and was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear. He survived 2 plane crashes, tunnelled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate. About WWI, he wrote, “Frankly I had enjoyed the war.”
nWwGP TIL in the mid-20th century, a researcher wore a pair of hand-engineered goggles that completely inverted his eyesight. Although he "stumbled wildly" at first, after 10 days he had grown so accustomed to his upside-down world that "paradoxically" everything began to appear rightside-up to him again.